In English, many vowel shifts only affect vowels followed by /r/ in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by an /r/ that has since been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve merging of vowel distinctions, so that fewer vowel phonemes occur before /r/ than in other positions in a word.

Overview

In rhotic dialects, /r/ is pronounced in most cases. In General American (GA), /r/ is pronounced as an approximant [ɹ] or [ɻ] in most positions, but after some vowels is pronounced as r-coloring. In Scottish English, /r/ is traditionally pronounced as a flap [ɾ] or trill [r], and there are no r-colored vowels.

In most English dialects, there are vowel shifts only affecting vowels before /r/, or vowels that were historically followed by /r/. Vowel shifts before historical /r/ fall into two categories: mergers and splits. Mergers are more common, and therefore most English dialects have fewer vowel distinctions before historical /r/ than in other positions in a word.

In many North American dialects, there are ten or eleven stressed monophthongs; only five or six vowel contrasts are possible before a following /r/ in the same syllable (peer, pear, purr, par, pore, poor). Often, more contrasts exist when the /r/ is not in the same syllable; in some American dialects and in most native English dialects outside North America, for example, mirror and nearer do not rhyme, and some or all of marry, merry and Mary are pronounced distinctly. (In North America, these distinctions are most likely to occur in New York City, Philadelphia, some of Eastern New England [for some, including Boston], and in conservative Southern accents.) In many dialects, however, the number of contrasts in this position tends to be reduced, and the tendency seems to be towards further reduction. The difference in how these reductions have been manifested represents one of the greatest sources of cross-dialect variation.

Non-rhotic accents in many cases show mergers in the same positions as rhotic accents do, even though there is often no /r/ phoneme present. This results partly from mergers that occurred before the /r/ was lost, and partly from later mergers of the centering diphthongs and long vowels that resulted from the loss of /r/.

In some cases, the quality of a vowel before /r/ is different from the quality of the vowel elsewhere. For example, in some dialects of American English the quality of the vowel in more typically does not occur except before /r/, and is somewhere in between the vowels of maw and mow. (It is similar to the vowel of the latter word, but without the glide.)

It is important to note however that different mergers occur in different dialects. Among United States accents, the Boston, Eastern New England and New York accents have the lowest degree of pre-rhotic merging. Some have observed that rhotic North American accents are more likely to have such merging than non-rhotic accents, but this cannot be said of rhotic British accents like Scottish English, which is firmly rhotic and yet many varieties have all the same vowel contrasts before /r/ as before any other consonant.

One of the best-known mergers of vowels before /r/ is the Mary–marry–merry merger,[4] which consists of a merging of the vowels /æ/ (as in the name Carrie or the word marry) and /ɛ/ (as in Kerry or merry) with historical /eɪ/ (as in Cary or Mary) whenever they are realised before intervocalic /r/ (the "r" sound when occurring between vowels).[5] This merger is fairly widespread, meaning completed or at a near-complete stage, in North American English,[sample 1] but rare in other varieties of English. The following variants are common in North America:

Full Mary–marry–merry merger (also known, in context, as the three-way merger): This is found throughout much of the United States (particularly the American West) and in all of Canada except Montreal. This is found in about 57% of U.S. English speakers, according to a 2003 dialect survey.[1]

No merger whatsoever (also known, in context, as the three-way contrast): A lack of this merger in North America exists primarily in the Northeastern United States, e.g. in the accents of Philadelphia, New York City, and Rhode Island. 17% of Americans have no merger. [6][sample 2] In the Philadelphia accent, the three-way contrast is preserved, but merry tends to be merged with Murray; likewise ferry can be a homophone of furry. (See furry–ferry merger below.) The three-way contrast is found in about 17% of U.S. English speakers overall.[1]

Mary–marry merger only: This is only found in about 16% of U.S. English speakers overall, particularly in the Northeast.[2]

Mary–merry merger only: This is found among Anglophones in Montreal and in about 9% of U.S. English speakers overall, particularly in the eastern half of the U.S.[1][7]

merry-marry merger only: This merger is rare, found in only about 1% of U.S. English speakers.

The three are kept distinct outside of North America. In accents that do not have the merger, Mary has the "a" sound of "mare" ([ˈmɛəɹi]), marry has the "short a" sound of "mat" ([ˈmæɹi]), and merry has the "short e" sound of "met" ([ˈmɛɹi]). There is plenty of variance in the distribution of the merger, with expatriate communities of these speakers being formed all over the country. The most common phonetic value of the merged vowel is [ɛ], so that, for example, Mary, marry, and merry for many Americans all become merged as [ˈmɛɹi].[3]

Mirror–nearer merger

Another widespread merger is that of /ɪ/ with /iː/ before intervocalic /r/ (in other words, the sound "r" when between vowels). The typical result of the merger is [i(ː)ɹ] or [i(ː)ɚ]. For speakers with this merger, mirror and nearer rhyme, unless mirror has merged with mere, and Sirius is homophonous with serious. North Americans who do not merge these vowels often speak the more conservative northeastern or southern accents.

Mirror–mere merger

This merger is found in many accents of North American English, especially those that pronounce /r/ as a labializedretroflex approximant[ɻʷ]. An unstressed /rəC/ or /rɨC/ can elide the /ə/ to become /rC/, deleting a syllable as a result. The most common is /rər/ or /rɨr/ reducing to [r] anywhere in a word, producing possible homophones like error-air, horror-whore, mirror-mere and terror-tear. This can be an uneven merger, with mirror-mere merging while most other pairs do not. In rapid speech, this can also cause words ending with /r/ to merge with their respective inflected forms suffixed with -er, producing homophones like near-nearer and sure-surer, though speakers may subtly enunciate the difference to keep the words distinct, such as [ˈnɪɹ] vs. [ˈnɪɹ ː ~ ˈnɪɹ.ɹ̩]. Other sequences of /rəC/ usually reduce non-word-finally, producing possible homophones like coroner-corner, Morrigan-Morgan and Oregon-organ. Word-final sequences tend not to reduce, but there are exceptions such as orange[ˈɔɹəndʒ]. The mirror-mere merger is usually strongest in the Western United States, and most absent in the Northeastern United States, the Southern United States and from non-rhotic North American accents in general.

The vowel /ʌ/ before intervocalic /r/ is merged with /ɝ/ in many dialects of American English, but not in the Northeast and the South[8][clarification needed] or in dialects outside North America. Speakers with this merger pronounce hurry so that it rhymes with furry, and turret so that it rhymes with stir it.

Furry–ferry merger

The merger of /ɜ/ and /ɛ/ before /r/ (both neutralized with syllabic r) is common in the Philadelphia accent.[9] This accent does not usually have the marry–merry merger. That is, "short a" /æ/ as in marry is a distinct unmerged class before /r/. Thus, merry and Murray are pronounced the same, but marry is distinct from this pair.

Homophonous pairs

/ɜr/

/ɛr/

IPA

Notes

curry

Kerry

ˈkɜri

furry

ferry

ˈfɜri

Murray

merry

ˈmɜri

purry

Perry

ˈpɜri

scurry

skerry

ˈskɜri

Historic "short o" before intervocalic R

Words that would have a stressed /ɒ/ before intervocalic /r/ in the UK's Received Pronunciation (RP) are treated differently in different varieties of North American English. As shown in the table below, in Canadian English, all of these are pronounced with [-ɔɹ-], as in cord (and thus merge with historic prevocalic /ɔːr/ in words like glory because of the horse–hoarse merger). In the accents of New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and the Carolinas (and traditionally throughout the South), these words are pronounced among some with [-ɑɹ-], as in card (and thus merge with historic prevocalic /ɑːr/ in words like starry). In the traditional Eastern New England accents (famously, the Rhode Island and Boston accents) these words are pronounced with [-ɒɹ-], just like in RP. Most of the rest of the United States (marked "General American" in the table), however, has a distinctive mixed system: while the majority of words are pronounced as in Canada, the four (sometimes five) words in the left-hand column are typically pronounced with [-ɑɹ-].[10]

Even in the Northeastern accents without the split (Boston, New York, Philadelphia), some of the words in the original short-o class often show influence from other American dialects and end up with [-ɔɹ-] anyway. For instance, some speakers from the Northeast may, for example, pronounce Florida, orange, and horrible with [-ɑɹ-], but foreign and origin with [-ɔɹ-]. Exactly which words are affected by this differs from dialect to dialect and occasionally from speaker to speaker, an example of sound change by lexical diffusion.

Mergers and splits before historic coda r

Near–square merger

The near–square merger (or cheer–chair merger) is the merger of the Early Modern English sequences /iːr/ and /ɛːr/ (and the /eːr/ between them), which is found in some accents of modern English. Some speakers in New York City[citation needed] and many speakers in New Zealand[4][5][6] merge them in favor of the NEAR vowel, while some speakers in East Anglia and South Carolina merge them in favor of the SQUARE vowel.[11] The merger is widespread in the Anglophone Caribbean.

Homophonous pairs

/ɪə(r)/

/eə(r)/

IPA (V=ɪ~e)

beard

Baird

ˈbVə(r)d

beer

bare

ˈbVə(r)

beer

bear

ˈbVə(r)

cheer

chair

ˈtʃVə(r)

clear

Claire

ˈklVə(r)

dear

dare

ˈdVə(r)

deer

dare

ˈdVə(r)

ear

air

ˈVə(r)

ear

ere

ˈVə(r)

ear

heir

ˈVə(r)

fear

fair

ˈfVə(r)

fear

fare

ˈfVə(r)

fleer

flair

ˈflVə(r)

fleer

flare

ˈflVə(r)

hear

hair

ˈhVə(r)

hear

hare

ˈhVə(r)

here

hair

ˈhVə(r)

here

hare

ˈhVə(r)

leer

lair

ˈlVə(r)

leered

laird

ˈlVə(r)d

mere

mare

ˈmVə(r)

near

nare

ˈnVə(r)

peer

pair

ˈpVə(r)

peer

pare

ˈpVə(r)

peer

pear

ˈpVə(r)

pier

pair

ˈpVə(r)

pier

pare

ˈpVə(r)

pier

pear

ˈpVə(r)

rear

rare

ˈrVə(r)

shear

share

ˈʃVə(r)

sheer

share

ˈʃVə(r)

sneer

snare

ˈsnVə(r)

spear

spare

ˈspVə(r)

tear (weep)

tare

ˈtVə(r)

tear (weep)

tear (rip)

ˈtVə(r)

tier

tare

ˈtVə(r)

tier

tear (rip)

ˈtVə(r)

weary

wary

ˈwVəri

weir

ware

ˈwVə(r)

weir

wear

ˈwVə(r)

we're

ware

ˈwVə(r)

we're

wear

ˈwVə(r)

Fern–fir–fur merger

The fern–fir–fur merger is the merger of the Middle English vowels /ɛ, ɪ, ʊ/ into [ɜ] when historically followed by /r/ in the coda of the syllable. As a result of this merger, the vowels in fern, fir and fur are the same in almost all accents of English; the exceptions are Scottish English.

Labov (1994) also reports such a merger in some western parts of the United States 'with a high degree of r constriction.'

Nurse-north merger

The nurse-north merger is a merger of the English vowels /ɜr/ and /ɔr/ into [ɔː] that occurs in broadest Geordie.[10]

Steer-stir merger

In older varieties of Southern American English and the West Country dialects of English English, words like ear, here, and beard are pronounced /jɝ/, /hjɝ/, /bjɝd/,[13] meaning that there is no complete merger: word pairs like beer and burr are still distinguished as /bjɝ/ vs. /bɝ/. However, if the syllable begins with a consonant cluster (e.g. queer) or a palato-alveolar consonant (e.g. cheer), then there is no /j/ sound: /kwɝ/, /tʃɝ/. It is thus possible that pairs like steer-stir are merged in some accents as /stɝ/, although this is not explicitly reported in the literature.

Tower–tire, tower–tar and tire–tar mergers

The tower–tire and tower–tar mergers are vowel mergers in some accents of Southern British English (including many types of RP, as well as the accent of Norwich) that causes the triphthong /aʊə/ of tower to merge either with the /aɪə/ of tire (both surfacing as diphthongal [ɑə]) or with the /ɑː/ of tar. Some speakers merge all three sounds, so that tower, tire, and tar are all homophonous as [tɑː].[15]

The tire–tar merger, with tower kept distinct, is found in some Midland and Southern U.S. accents.[16]

Homophonous pairs

/aʊə(r)/

/aɪə(r)/

/ɑː(r)/

IPA

Bauer

buyer

bar

ˈbɑː(r)

coward

-

card

ˈkɑː(r)d

cower

-

car

ˈkɑː(r)

cowered

-

card

ˈkɑː(r)d

-

fire

far

ˈfɑː(r)

flour

flyer

-

ˈflɑː(r)

flower

flyer

-

ˈflɑː(r)

hour

ire

are

ˈɑː(r)

Howard

hired

hard

ˈhɑː(r)d

-

mire

mar

ˈmɑː(r)

our

ire

are

ˈɑː(r)

power

pyre

par

ˈpɑː(r)

sour

sire

-

ˈsɑː(r)

scour

-

scar

ˈskɑː(r)

shower

shire

-

ˈʃɑː(r)

showered

-

shard

ˈʃɑː(r)d

-

spire

spar

ˈspɑː(r)

tower

tire

tar

ˈtɑː(r)

tower

tyre

tar

ˈtɑː(r)

Cure–fir merger

In East Anglia a merger with the [ɜː] of shirt is common, especially after palatal and palatoalveolar consonants, so that sure is often pronounced [ʃɜː] (which is also a common single-word merger in American English, in which the word sure is often /ʃɚ/); yod-dropping may apply as well, yielding pronunciations such as [pɜː] for pure. Other pronunciations in cure–fir merging dialects include /pjɝ/pure, /ˈk(j)ɝiəs/curious, /ˈb(j)ɝoʊ/bureau, /ˈm(j)ɝəl/mural.[17]

Homophonous pairs

/jʊə(r)/

/ɜː(r)/

IPA

Notes

cure

cur

ˈkɜː(r)

cure

curr

ˈkɜː(r)

cured

curd

ˈkɜː(r)d

cured

curred

ˈkɜː(r)d

fury

furry

ˈfɜːri

pure

per

ˈpɜː(r)

pure

purr

ˈpɜː(r)

Pour–poor merger

In Modern English dialects, the reflexes of Early Modern English /uːr/ and /iur/ are highly susceptible to phonemic merger with other vowels. Words belonging to this class are most commonly spelled with oor, our, ure, or eur; examples include poor, tour, cure, Europe. Wells refers to this class as the CURE words, after the keyword of the lexical set to which he assigns them.

In traditional Received Pronunciation and General American, CURE words are pronounced with RP /ʊə/ (/ʊər/ before a vowel) and GenAm /ʊr/.[11] But these pronunciations are being replaced by other pronunciations in many English accents.

In southern English English it is now common to pronounce CURE words with /ɔː/, so that moor is often pronounced /mɔː/, tour/tɔː/, poor/pɔː/.[18] The traditional form is much more common in the northern counties of England. A similar merger is encountered in many varieties of American English, where the pronunciations [oə] or [or]~[ɔr] (depending on whether the accent is rhotic or non-rhotic) prevail.[19][20]

Where the /ʊə/ becomes /ʉː.ə/ and where it becomes /oː/ is not very predictable. But words spelt with -oor that originally had /ʊə/ become /oː/ rhyming with the words door and floor two words that rhyme with store in all dialects of English except a few older northern British dialects.

A similar split occurs in many varieties of North American English that causes /ʊr/ to disappear and split into /ɝ/ and /ɔr/, causing pure, cure, lure, sure to rhyme with fir, and poor, moor, boor to rhyme with store and for. In many of these dialects, tour remains with /ʊr/, leading to a three-way split between tour/tʊr/ (although often sounding more like [tur]), pure/pjɝ/ and poor/pɔr/.[citation needed] In some others, tour changes to disyllabic [ˈtu.ɚ] or [ˈtu.ɪ̈ɹ].[citation needed]

Horse–hoarse merger

Red areas show where in the U.S. the distinction between horse and hoarse is still made or perceived by a majority of speakers. Many black speakers maintain the distinction throughout the country. Map based on Labov, Ash, and Boberg[1]

The distinction was made in traditional Received Pronunciation as represented in the first and second editions of the Oxford English Dictionary. The IPA symbols used are /ɔː/ for horse and /ɔə/ for hoarse. In the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary, and in the planned third edition (on-line entries), the pronunciations of horse and of hoarse are both given as /hɔːs/.

In the United States, the merger is quite recent in some parts of the country. For example, fieldwork performed in the 1930s by Kurath and McDavid shows the contrast robustly present in the speech of Vermont, northern and western New York State, Virginia, central and southern West Virginia, and North Carolina[27]; but by the 1990s telephone surveys conducted by Labov, Ash, and Boberg show these areas as having almost completely undergone the merger.[28] And even in areas where the distinction is still made, the acoustic difference between the [ɔr] of horse and the [or] of hoarse is rather small for many speakers.[29]

The two groups of words merged by this rule are called the lexical setsNORTH (including horse) and FORCE (including hoarse) by Wells (1982). Etymologically, the NORTH words had /ɒɹ/ and the FORCE words had /oːɹ/.

The orthography of a word often signals whether it belongs in the NORTH set or the FORCE set. The spellings war, quar, aur, and word-final or indicate NORTH (e.g., quarter, war, warm, warn, aura, aural, Thor). The spellings oVr or orV (where V stands for a vowel) indicate FORCE (e.g., board, coarse, hoarse, door, floor, course, pour, oral, more, historian, moron, glory). Words spelled or followed by a consonant mostly belong with NORTH, but the following exceptions are listed with FORCE by Wells (1982):

Flower–flour merger

The flower–flour merger is a merger that occurs in most varieties of English that makes words like sour and our have two syllables and makes flour and flower homophones. In accents that don't have the merger, flour has one syllable and flower has two syllables. Similar mergers also occur where "hire" gains a syllable rhyming with "flyer" and "coir" gains a syllable rhyming with "foyer" and "employer". [30]

↑http://ldc.upenn.edu/myl/thurr.mp3 Text: "I like the way you do that right there (right there)/Swing your hips when you're walkin', let down your hair (let down your hair)/I like the way you do that right there (right there)/Lick your lips when you're talkin', that make me stare"